Wolf Parade

The soaring choruses, rousing anthems, sprawling guitars and
chaotic keys that make up Wolf Parade are on proud display over the course of Cry Cry Cry, the band’s thunderous first
album in seven years.

That unique combination of sounds and influences, spearheaded by
electric co-frontmen Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner—a complex yet relatable,
energetic brew of glam, prog, synth-rock, and satisfying discomfort—helped
define 2000s indie rock with three critically celebrated albums, and propelled
a growing Wolf Parade fandom even after the band went on a then-indefinite
hiatus in 2010.

The upcoming return marks their first to be produced by Pacific
Northwest legend John Goodmanson (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Unwound) at
Robert Lang Studios outside of Seattle, and is accompanied by a renewed focus
and the creativity of a band that took their time getting exactly where they
needed to be. It’s also a homecoming to Sub Pop, which released all three of
the band’s previous albums.

“The band itself is almost a fifth member of the band, something
more or at least different than the sum of its parts,” says Krug. “We don’t
know who or what is responsible for our sound, it’s just something that
naturally and consistently comes from this particular combo of musicians.”

“Once we got back together, I was playing guitar, writing and
singing in a way that I only do while I’m in Wolf Parade,” says Dan Boeckner,
who shares primary lyrical and singing duties with Spencer. “It’s just
something that I can’t access without the other three people in the room.”

In the time apart, the band scattered geographically and focused
on family and other work–Spencer on his solo project Moonface, Dan on his
bands Handsome Furs, Operators, and Divine Fits (with Spoon’s Britt Daniel),
and Dante De Caro on records with Carey Mercer’s Frog Eyes and Blackout Beach.
And that time allowed for an even stronger, tighter band to emerge.

Eventually, Spencer, Dante, and Arlen found themselves all back
living on remote Vancouver Island, accompanied by a population density less
than that of Alaska, and the tranquility that leads to creative emanations like
a government-sponsored bathtub race. With Dan on the same coast in Northern
California, discussions began about picking things up where they left off.

“All of our albums are always a reaction to our last one,” says
Arlen. “Expo 86 (2010) was about as
sparse as we get, which is usually still pretty dense, and this time we wanted
to make the palette a little larger.” Adds Dante, “Expo was a real rock record. We just sort of banged it out, which
was kind of the point.” Cry Cry Cry,
on the other hand, is more deliberate in its arrangements and embrace of the
studio process. “If a part was going on for too long it would get lopped, you
know?” says Dan. “That being said, there are two very long songs on the record
and I don’t think it would be a Wolf Parade record if it didn’t have some kind
of prog epic.”

“I think we’re actually a better band than we were when we
stopped playing music together,” says Arlen. “A little bit more life experience
for everybody, and people having made a bunch of records on their own.”

The result of this new consciousness is songs like “Valley Boy,”
a Bowie-inflected anthem for which Spencer wrote lyrics after Leonard Cohen
died the day before the 2016 election (“The radio’s been playing all your
songs, talking about the way you slipped away up the stairs, did you know that
it was all gonna go wrong?”). “You’re Dreaming,” also influenced by the
election and the spinning shock that followed, is driving, urgent power pop
that draws from artists like Tom Petty and what Dan calls one of his “default
languages” for writing music. The swirly, synth-heavy crescendo of “Artificial
Life” takes on the struggle of artists and at-risk communities (“If the flood
should ever come, we’ll be last in the lifeboat”).

The album carries a sense of uprising that is not unrelated to
Wolf Parade’s renewed determination to drive the band forward in uncertain
times. Welcome to Cry Cry Cry.